


Glasgow Provincial ConninEE for the 
Training of Teachers. 



REPORT 

ON 

TRAINING COLLEGE SCHOOLS, 



Their Place and Function in a Training Centre 
for Teachers. 



Glasgow Provincial Committee for the 
Training of Teachers. 



REPORT 

ON 

TRAINING COLLEGE SCHOOLS. 



Their Place and Function in a Training Centre 
for Teachers. 



v"^ 



<^-' 



SUMMARY. 



^^ 



1. Tlie need for making practical training thoroughly efficient. 

2. Practising Schools abroad — 

(rt) Horace Mann Schools, New York. 
(&) Speyer School, New York, 
(r) Chicago Universit}^ School. 

3. Practising Schools at home — 

(a) Fielden Schools, Manchester. 

(6) London Comity Comicil Training Schools. 

4. Conclusions — 

Three types of schools required — 

(1) Practising Schools — Where the conditions will be 

practically the same as students will meet with in 
after life. 

These will be the ordinary public schools. 

(2) Demoxsteation School — Where the theory of the 

lecture room can be at once illustrated in the 
practice of the class room. 

School or schools under direct authority of 
Training Committee.^ 

(3) Experimental School — Progress in every depart- 

ment directly proportionate to the number of well- 
directed experiments undertaken in it. So in 
Education. 

Two main lines of enquiry — 

(a) Problems relating to school adminis- 
tration, curriculum, and organisation. 

(6) Problems relating to methods of teaching 
the different subjects. 

School under direct authority of Training 
Committee, 






i TRAINING COLLEGE SCHOOLS. 



Their Place and Function in a Training Centre 
for Teachers. 



The arrangements for the practical training of students in Training 
Colleges seem, at present, to be in a transition stage both at lionie 
and abroad. The need for some change in existing conditions, for 
some re-adjustment of agencies to meet the educational position 
created by the abolition of the pupil teacher system, is generalk- 
recognised. The students coming forward for training in future will 
have much less teaching experience than in the past, though what 
they have got will have been obtained under conditions much more 
favourable to good work than ever before. But the time available 
for practical training is so limited that 'it is imperative that the work 
should be carried on under conditions that will give students the 
maximum of teaching opportunities in the short time available. 
How this can best be accomplished is the problem that faces us in 
common with the other Training Centres. There is little, either at 
home or abroad, in the way of direct experiment to help us, but a 
consideration of the particulars furnished below in regard to the 
newer type of Training College Schools, both in this country and 
America, should prove of service in determining the future develop- 
ment and character of our Training Schools. 

TEACHERS' COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 

NEW YORK. 

Teachers' College, which is affiliated with Columbia University, 
may be regarded as the Education Faculty of the University, taking 
rank with the Faculties of Science, Law, and Medicine. 

There are about 1,000 students in attendance. Many of these 
are Graduates of Columbia and other Universities, while the large 
majority of the others enter Teachers' College after completing a full 
Normal School course, and after a few years' experience of practical 
teaching. Hence, the necessity for practice in teaching is not so 



pressing as in our Training Colleges. The practical training is 
obtained in Teachers' College Schools — 

1. The Horace Mann Schools. 

2. The Speyer School. 

These schools have the following features in common : — 

(a) They are under the direction of a Superintendent, who is 
also the Professor of School Administration in Teachers' 
College. 

(^) The separate departments — High School, Elementary 
School, and Kindergarten — are each under the direct 
management of a Principal. 

(c) The Professors in the College are supervisors of their 
respective subjects in the school curriculum. 

(rf) The curriculum and methods of instruction are laid 
down for each subject by a Committee, consisting of 
the relative Professor or Professors in the subject, the 
Schools Superintendent, and the Principal. 

I. The Horace Mann Schools. 

Kindergarten Department. 

Elementary Department. 

Secondary Department, or High School. 
The attendance is about 1,100, distributed as follows : — 100 in the 
Kindergarten, and 500 in each of the other departments. 

Purpose of the School. 

(1) The school was originally founded to serve as a Practising 
School for Teachers' College students. Situated in the centre of a 
wealthy residential district, the school has attracted pupils of a high 
social status. Though the fee ranges from £5 per annum for the 
Kindergarten to £50 for the High School, there is never any lack of 
pupils. Indeed, there is always a large waiting list, so that the 
school is able to select its pupils. The notable success of the school 
has gradually altered its character. From being a Practising School 
where students received their clinical training, it has become a model 
school where little, if any, teaching is done by the student. 

(2) To a limited extent it also serves as a Demonstration and 
Observation School, where the students may see in actual operation 
the tlieories and methods which have been discussed in the lecture 



room. The active interest of the Professors in the school produces 
the most intimate connection between the theory and practice of 
teaching — a connection that is usually far enough remote in other 
Training Centres. 

(3) A good deal of valuable experimental work is also carried 
on, particularly in regard to the educational value of different school 
subjects. The Horace Mann Schools may, however, now be regarded 
mainl}^ as model schools in the best sense of the term, and as such 
they are probably the best staffed, equipped, and organised anywhere 
to be found. Their chief value to the students is that they set before 
them a high, yet, under favourable conditions, practicable standard 
of merit at which they can aim in their own life work. 

Teachers' College has rendered notable service to Education by 
publishing a full record of the various experiments in curriculum, 
&c., and of the actual methods adopted in class teaching carried on 
in the Horace Mann School. During the past few years a series of 
reports has been issued, giving in detail the working schemes for 
teaching every stage of every subject from the lowest to the highest 
class. In addition, the College issues every year, in book form, the 
results of researches by the Professors and advanced students of the 
College in the History and Philosophy of Education, in Educational 
Psychology, in Educational Administration, and in related fields. 
These publications are doing much to shape and direct educational 
opinion in America at the present time. 

2. The Speyer School. 

This school is l:>uilt in the centre of a poor district, but not very 
far from Teachers' College. Education is free throughout. There 
are about 300 pupils in the school. The number of pupils in 
each class is only 20. 

Purpose of the School. 

Two main purposes are kept in view throughout — 
(1) The school is meant to furnish the necessary practice in 
teaching to students in Teachers' College. In this respect it takes 
the place the Horace Mann Schools were originally meant to till. 

The chief point to note in regard to the practice in teaching 
is, that it is of a thoroughly testing character. The students are 
made directly responsible for results. The regulations for the 
practical training are given in full detail in one erf the publications 



6 

of Teachers' College, and might prove of interest and help to the 
Method staff in our own Provincial College. 

(2) The school is also an Experimental Centre, and every facility 
is afforded graduate students for any research work they may wish 
to undertake. Both this school and Horace Mann Schools lay special 
stress upon the importance and necessity of giving full scope to the 
activities of the child. Hence, subjects such as Manual Training, 
Art, Nature Study, and Physical Exercises play a prominent part 
in the curriculum. Both schools, too, claim to have proved 
experimentally that this can be done without any falling away in 
the older subjects of school study. 

CHICAGO UNIVERSITY. 

Professor Dewey's Experimental School. 

This school was founded by Professor Dewey on the model of 
that of Professor Rein at Jena, but Professor Dewey has developed it 
on lines largely original. The curriculum and methods followed 
involve a considerable break with accepted practice, as may be 
gathered from Professor Dewey's own statement of the school 
aims : — 

" When the school was started there were certain ideas in mind 
— perhaps it would be better to say questions and problems ; certain 

problems which it seemed worth while to test We started 

on the whole with four such questions or problems — 

(1) ''What can be done, and how can it be done, to bring the 
school into closer relation to home and neighbourhood life — instead 
of having the school a place where the child comes solely to learn 
certain lessons ? 

(2) "What can be done in the way of introducing subject- 
matter in History and Science and Art that shall have a positive 
value and real significance in the child's own life : that shall 
represent, even to the youngest children, something Avorthy of 
attainment in skill or knowledge, as much so to the little pupil as 
are the studies of the High School or College student to him ? 

(3) "How can instruction in the formal symbolic branches — 
mastering of the ability to read, write, and use figures intelligently — 
l)e carried on with everyday experience and occupation as their 
background, and in definite relation to other studies of more inherent 
content ; and be carried on in such a way that the child shall feel 



their necessity through their connection with subjects that appeal to 
him on their own account ? 

(4) " Individual attention. 

"The aim of the school, then, is to find out, 1:>y trying, and by 
doing — not l)y discussing and theorising — whether these problems 
may be worked out, and hoio they may be worked out." 

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY. 
Fielden Schools. 

Kindergarten School. 
Primary School. 
Upper School. 

These schools are managed by Trustees representative of the 
University, the Local Education Authority, and the parelits of 
scholars in attendance at the schools. A small fee (Is. 6d. per 
week) is charged, and there is no lack of pupils. The Director 
of Education is the Fielden Professor of Education in the University. 
The Lecturers and Demonstrators in the Faculty of Education take 
an active share in the work of the schools. Together with the 
Director and the Headmaster they determine the curriculum and 
methods to be followed in the schools. 

The students in the Education Faculty are of two classes — 
undergraduate students and post-graduate students. The University, 
in addition to the recognised degrees, grants a Diploma in Education 
to students who complete a satisfactory course of training. 

These students are sent out for some weeks at a time to gain 
practical experience in the ordinary public schools of the city. 
While the Method staff of the University exercise some oversight 
over the students' work in these schools, the main control necessarily 
devolves upon the Principal and class teacher of such schools. 

The Fielden Schools are auxiliary to these. Professor Findlay, 
the Director of Schools and Professor of Education, is emphatic 
that the public schools alone are not suiiicient for the practical 
needs of the students. It is imperative, he thinks, that every 
Training Centre should have a school or schools under its own 
direct control, to serve as Demonstration and Practising Schools. 
School children and their teachers — the Professors, Lecturers, and 
Demonstrators — should all be close at hand if proper collaboration 
is to result. The theories of teaching in the lecture room should 
grow directly out of the practice, just as in a hospital or a chemical 



8 

laboratory. The special function of such a school, which may be 
termed a Demonstration School, should be to afford a workshop 
for lecturers and students with an intimacy and thoroughness that 
cannot be allowed in the ordinary public school. 

It should be noted that the Fielden Schools really aim at 
fulfilling three functions — 

(1) Practising School for students ; 

(2) Demonstration School, where the best methods can be 

shown in actual operation under the best conditions ; 

(3) Experimental School, where investigations may be carried 

on in regard to current educational problems. 
Demonstration and practice go naturally together^ but the combination 
of these two with an Experimental School seems bound to re-act 
unfavourably on one or other. 

The curriculum of a Demonstration School should be based on 
that prescribed for the ordinary public schools, and the general 
conditions under which work is carried on should not be far removed 
from those obtaining in such public schools. Perfect freedom should 
be allowed in the matter of organisation, schemes of work, and general 
methods, but otherwise the Demonstration School should approximate 
to the public school as closely as possible. Only thus can it serve as 
a genuine training ground for young teachers. 

An Experimental School, on the other hand, would have its 
purpose defeated if restricted to the ordinary curriculum. One of its 
functions is to test the educational values of different subjects, and, to 
do so, liberty must be given to omit some subjects and to concentrate 
on others. While not, therefore, questioning the value and 
importance of the experimental work done in the Fielden Schools, 
we venture to point out that the more successful they are in this 
direction, the less adequately can they fulfil their function as 
Demonstration and Practising Schools, and vice versa. 

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL TRAINING COLLEGES. 

The arrangements for practical training are still in the tentative 
stage, but are likely to crystallise finally in the following form :;— 

(1) Part of the practical teaching to be obtained in the 

ordinary public schools — the work to be supervised by 
the Training College staff. 

(2) Demonstration School (or Schools, according to the size of 

the College), which is to be under the control of the 



9 

Training College and supervised by its teaching staff. 
The Headmaster or Headmistress of the school is to be 
regarded as a member of the College staff. The 
organisation, schemes of work, and time-tables will be 
arranged by the College staff — the Head Teacher, of 
course, being an important member of this Committee. 

CONCLUSIONS. 

After careful consideration of the whole question, and in the 
light of the investigations they have made, the Committee have come 
to the conclusion that three types of school are necessary in connection 
with the combined interests of the training of teachers and the study 
of Education. These are — 

(1) Practising Schools. 

(2) Demonstration Schools. * 

(3) Experimental Schools. 

(i) Practising Schools. 

These would be the best of the ordinary public schools, to which 
students would be admitted for practice under supervision. This 
entails no change in present practice, but it might be possible to 
systematise this part of the training to a greater extent than at 
present. The great disadvantage of the ordinary school as the 
practice ground for the young teacher is that it offers no adequate 
guarantee of co-relation between theory and practice. Though much 
can be done in .this direction by conferences between the Method staff 
and the Masters of the Practising Schools, there is always bound to 
be a certain degree of loose articulation between the two. Hence the 
need for Demonstration Schools. 

(2) Demonstration Schools. 

These, as has already been pointed out, should be under the 
direct control of the Training College Authorities. They should be 
subject to the Code Regulations of the Education Department, and to 
inspection by its officers, just as the other schools ; but in regard to 
schemes of work, time-table, and methods, they should have the 
fullest liberty. One of their main functions, indeed, would be to 
illustrate new methods for which the ordinary schools are not yet 
ready. The Lecturers on Education and the Masters of Method should 
take an active part in directing and supervising the work of the 
schools. The schemes of work, the time-table, and the methods in 



to 

use should be determined by them in conference with the Head- 
masters and responsible teachers of the schools. This would secure, 
as nothing else could, the necessary co-relation between lecture room 
theory and school practice. Such Demonstration Schools, staffed 
with specially selected teachers and equipped with all necessary 
apparatus, should also serve as model schools where the governing 
principles, the methods, and the results would represent all that was 
best in the educational practice of the day. 

Finally, as Professor. Findlay has pointed out, " These Demon- 
stration Schools would furnish a Avorkshop for lecturers and students 
with an intimacy and thoroughness that cannot be allowed in the 
ordinary schools." " To convince young teachers of the results of 
approved methods, facilities for observing or for demonstrating these 
at any stage in the development of a subject are essential, and such 
facilities can only be got in a school entirely under the control of 
the Committee.''— Rejjort for 1907-08 by Mr. M'Calhm, Master of 
Method. 

(3) Experimental Schools. 

There is a growing agreement among educational experts that 
an Experimental School is an indispensable institution in any 
complete organisation for the training of teachers. In the Demon- 
stration School the future teacher has the oj^portunity of seeing 
the best accepted methods being carried out in a more complete 
and S3^stematic form than he can see them in any but the most 
exceptional schools ; and it is very important that he should have 
such models for imitation. But one who has only learned to 
imitate, even when the methods he imitates are the accepted l^est, 
is imperfectly trained for the work of the teacher. The Experimental 
School, properly conducted, is calculated to give that openness of 
mind to new views, and the power of adaptation to changing 
conditions, which is the necessary complement of the training got 
in the Demonstration School. 

It is a further advantage that the work of such a school would 
give the Lecturers and the Masters of ^Method, who are responsible 
for the training of teachers, the necessary opportunities for the 
practical stud}^ of educational problems. No University or College 
teachers can afford to l)ecome mere teachers and neglect personal 
research in the subjects they profess ; least of all, the teachers of 
teachers. W'itli an Experimental School, in the working of which 
they had s(jmc personal part, this danger Avould largely disappear, 
and it would cease to be a reproach to our educational theorists 



11 

that they alone among specialists contribute little or nothing to 
the advance of their own science. Further, as an important incident 
of the work, there might result from the original research of the 
teaching staff, experience that would l^e of very great service in 
solving the more pressing of our educational pi'oblems. Educational 
thought and practice have been in a state of continual change during 
the last decade or two, and the end is not yet. It is not too much to 
say that, if there had been one or two Experimental Schools in Scot- 
land during the last ten or fifteen years, a considerable waste of energy 
and of public money might have been avoided, and the general progress 
of Scottish Education would have been both steadier and surer. As 
things have been, the experimental work has been done at the expense 
of the ordinary schools, ill-fitted as they are in many ways for such 
experiment. Proper Experimental Schools of the kind suggested, 
with special facilities for testing new methods, would certainly 
have saved the ordinary schools from the necessity of this wasteful^ 
experiment. 

Accepting the principle that the experimental work of the school 
should be in more or less obvious relation to the work going on in the 
ordinar}^ school, two main lines of enquiry might be followed — 

I.—Problems relating to School Administration, Curriculum, 
and Organisation — such as — 

(a) Principles of classification (the value of age as a basis of 
classification : the best methods of grouping pupils for 
instruction in the different subjects, &c.) 

(6) The facts about fatigue effects both in pupils and teachers 
(work of the greatest importance not hitherto done 
for Scotland at all, and imperfectly done anywhere : 
a fundamental enquiry in school hygiene). 

(c) Arising out of the fatigue enquiries, enquiries as to the 
best arrangement of the school day, with respect to — 
(1) The order of subjects ; (2) Length of lesson periods 
and of intervals ; (3) The best employments for 
forenoon and afternoon sessions. In all these matters, 
concurrent experiments would need to be made in the 
ordinary schools. 

(r/) The educational value of the various subjects in the 
ordinary curriculum. It might be possible to arrive at 
a standard of values that would be of material service 
in determining the necessary subjects in a school 
curriculum. 



12 

n. — Problems relating to the Methods of Teaching the 
different Subjects. 

We are still far from knowing the best methods of teaching 
almost any of the school subjects. For example, we are still groping 
after the way to teach the mother tongue effectively, and it will take 
prolonged research to establish the best methods. In History and 
many other subjects there is the same uncertainty. Experiments 
like those of Mrs. Sheldon Barnes (" Studies in Historical Method") 
need to be repeated and varied, and, above all, applied in actual work 
of teaching. An Experimental School, acting perhaps in conjunction 
with the Demonstration School and using the methods of Child 
Study, would be of very great service to the teachers and schools of 
Scotland. 

It is scarcely possible to do more than suggest the general 
character of an Experimental School of the kind needed for our 
purposes in Glasgow. One or two points may, however, be noted — 

(1) While there is no reason why such a school should not 

include pupils from the Kindergarten stage up to the 
end of a full Secondary course, it would probabl}^ be 
found sufficient for all practical purposes to limit it 
to the Elementary stages. If the pupils at the age of 
12 or 13 were expected to be presented for the 
Qualifying Examination — a requirement in no way 
incompatible with perfect liberty in organisation at all 
preceding stages — there would be ample guarantee both 
to parents and to the public that the children were not 
suffering hi any way by the departure from the accepted 
course that experimental work might entail. 

(2) The classes should be small — certainly not more than 

25 or 30 pupils in one class. 

(3) For some purposes it might be well to have two classes in 

each school year at much the same level of advance- 
ment. Comparisons and control experiments are most 
easily made between two sets approximately equal in 
general standing. If this were done, the total number 
of pupils in the school would be about 400 — two groups 
of 25 in each of the eight years from 5 to 13. 

Objections to Experimental Schools. 

It has been said again and again — generally l^ty those ignorant of 
the actual methods of such schools — that the pupils will suffer 
through l)eing exploited in the interests of research. The criticism is 



13 

identical with that which is commonly made with regard to 
infirmaries connected with a Medical School. Even it* it be granted 
that at times the interests of the individuals are not quite the same 
as those of the experimenters, the possibility of resulting evils can be 
reduced to a minimum by proper organisation. Tt will be generally 
admitted that the best infirmaries are those joined on for experimental 
work to the Medical Schools, and there is every reason to believe that 
it would be so also with Education. The experience of Experimental 
Schools in America, Germany, and this country supports this view. 
In these there is always to be found a sufficiency of pupils whose 
parents belong to a class well qualified to discriminate between what 
is in the interests of their children and what is not. They show 
their faith in the education that is being given by sending one child 
after another to those schools and by paying substantial fees for this 
experimental education. The fact is that every intelligent teacher is 
an experimenter in the sense that he is alwa^^s making ne^\*. 
discoveries regarding the phenomena of child nature, and is constantly 
re-adjusting his methods in the light of riper experience. So also 
every good school is an Experimental School, ever seeking new 
foundations for its edvicational practice. 

In the Experimental School proper all this will be done under 
ideal conditions and on a scientific basis. As Professor Dewey has 
said, "The experiments will he for the child, not with the child." 

In such a school both those responsible for the lines of work 
pursued and those actually engaged in teaching would be picked 
men and women, whose personal influence would generally be such 
as to guarantee a satisfactory education for the pupils, whatever the 
subjects taught or the methods followed. 

Further, the careful preparation of work and the constant 
activity of mind, which are the preconditions of good experimental 
work, ensure vitality in the teaching to a degree necessarily limited 
in ordinary school practice, where the teacher is following a well- 
trodden path. Finally, and most important of all, the experiments 
most worth conducting do not, or at any rate need not, involve any 
considerable departure from ordinary practice. Experimental Schools 
with revolutionary methods are not likely to be taken as models by 
those who regard the Experimental School, not as a detached 
institution for testing doctrinaire theories, but as an organic part 
of the educational system of the nation. In all probability the 
temptation of those responsible for an Experimental School in this 
country would be to err on the side of a too close approximation 
to the ordinary conditions rather than to depart too far from them. 



14 

It is obvious, howeyer, that the character of the schools to be 
attached to Training Centres in this country can be determined only 
after consultation with the Education Department ; but, meanwhile, 
it is satisfactory to note that Dr. Struthers, when discussing the 
curriculum with the Joint Committee in November, 1907, indicated 
the desirability of having a school at the entire disposal of the 
Provincial Committees for carrying out experiments in the methods 
of teaching. 

The Special Sub-Committee charged with the duty of preparing 
this report desire to acknowledge their indebtedness to Dean Russell, 
Teachers' College, Columbia University, U.S.A.; Professor John 
Adams, Principal of the London Day Training College ; and Professor 
Mark Wright, Armstrong College, Newcastle.' They also wish to 
express their obligations to Mr. A. M. Williams, Rector, Training 
College; Mr. Hugh M'Callum, Master of Method; Mr. William 
Boyd, Lecturer on Education, Glasgow University ; and to Dr. Henry 
J. Watt, Lecturer on Psychology, who have been consulted through- 
out, and who are in entire agreement with the conclusions arrived at. 

D. MACGILLIVRAY. 
D. M. WILSON. 



15 



Publications that have been consulted in preparing the 

Report. 



Teachers' College Records — A series of valuable publications 
bearing on the work carried on in the Horace Mann and 
Speyer Schools. (Columbia University Press.) 

The Demonstration Schools Record — Edited by Professor 
Findlay. (Manchester Press.) 

Sadler's Reports — Vol. XI. 

School and Society — B}^ Professor Dewey. (King & Son, 
London.) 

The School and the Child — By Professor Dewey. (Blackie & 
Son.) 

The Study of Education — By J. A. Findlay. (Sadler's Reports. 
Vol. II.) 



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